[Maths-Education] Re: Research and teacher practices for 'working class' underachievement in secondary mathematics

[Phillip Kent]

Dear all, thanks for many generous responses, on and off-list. It will
take me a little while to digest these and I will feedback a summary to
the list.

I guess there is nothing like a juicy topic to get people going on a
Friday afternoon. But in fact it didn't cross my mind at time of writing
that it was Friday afternoon (honest!). :-)

Several people mentioned the importance of mixed ability classes, and
the work of Jo Boaler on 'complex instruction'. That is exactly what I
am doing research on in the REALMS Project at Sussex University, with Jo
Boaler, Judy Sebba, Geoffrey Kent and Lori Altendorff
[www.sussex.ac.uk/education/research/circlets/rprojects/realms]

In observing mixed ability classrooms where group work is being used I
have been trying to understand how student groups end up 'working' or
not, and the effects of the teacher's interventions. There is a view
that group work is generally a 'good thing' because it creates a space
in which more students can participate in more ways, and I agree with
that. But I have particularly observed cases of groups containing
students from different social backgrounds (I'm wary of using class
labels) where the group dynamic does not work positively but seems to be
reinforcing 'gaps'. So I'm trying to understand more about social
background and the mathematics classroom.

Any further thoughts are welcome. We plan to present a session on this
research at the BSRLM meeting in London on 12 March, so hope to carry on
the discussion with some of you then.

- Phillip

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Dr Phillip Kent
School of Education and Social Work
University of Sussex
Falmer BN1 9QQ
07950 952034   P.Kent at sussex.ac.uk 
www.sussex.ac.uk/education/research/circlets/rprojects/realms 
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